Re: [linux-audio-dev] Software filter engines for high end audio and now DSP's

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Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] Software filter engines for high end audio and now DSP's
From: Paul Barton-Davis (pbd_AT_Op.Net)
Date: ke helmi  16 2000 - 22:30:54 EST


In message <006e01bf781d$5d1f99c0$26a7b2c3_AT_ordo>you write:
>
>> How about RT Linux? It exists today.
>
>And it's patented. You cant' do e.g. a RealTimeBSD because it would be
>illegal. Wow this guy has taken the GPL to another level. Excuse me, but i
>get more and more pissed of at the uspatoff.

Victor's patent seems unlikely to stand. IBM was doing precisely what
he describes with VM/CMS, what, 20 years ago ?

Victor's comments on licensing the patent make it clear that if you
are working on other GPL projects, he will almost certainly license
the patent for nothing. He doesn't want to see the work he has put
into RTLinux going into a proprietary product that also contains
patents on ideas that the GPL community may later develop and/or wish
to use. Consider this timeline:

  GPL community: develops feature X, prior art now exists
  Proprietary organization: develops and patents feature Y,
                          then uses X and Y in product
  GPL community: develops feature Y, oops - its patented

Note that anyone can use the ideas in GPL software for a proprietary
program, just not the source code. Hence, the GPL does not protect us
in this instance. Victor apparently felt that there was some risk of
the above scenario happening. He considered the basic technology of
RTLinux as something that could easily end up in this kind of
scenario, and wanted to prevent it.

I am not sure that I agree with him, but for the time being, you
should know that if you are also developing GPL-ed software, you can
use the ideas from RTLinux very easily. If you are not writing GPL-ed
software ... well, thats another story and another can of worms.

My impression has been that he sees it as a defensive patent, and I
think there is something to be said for this strategy. I'm just not
sure what :)

--p


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